


Aftermath

by imaginary_golux



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Feels, Canonical Character Death, Eloping, First Kiss, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Post-Battle of Five Armies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 14:14:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29172474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginary_golux/pseuds/imaginary_golux
Summary: After the Battle of Five Armies, Dwalin has a few regrets. Ori helps him reduce that number by one, at least.
Relationships: Dwalin/Ori (Tolkien)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 30
Collections: February Ficlet Challenge 2021: Apocalypse No





	Aftermath

Dwalin didn’t really think there would _be_ an ‘after.’ None of them did. Thirteen dwarrow against a horde of orcs so large it filled the valley...even the great heroes of ages past would have had trouble with those odds, and though Dwalin is himself a mighty warrior - he knows it, and dwarrow have little use for false modesty - and his companions are brave and true, still, they are not likely to survive this.

Dwalin has very few regrets, as he follows his king into battle. He regrets that Thorin has fallen into the goldmadness which destroyed Thrain and Thror, though there’s little enough Dwalin can _do_ about that, and all the things he _could_ try, he already has. He regrets that his brother will die beside him, and the line of Fundin end with them. He regrets more bitterly still that Fili and Kili will fall, and the line of Thror and the Kings Under the Mountain end forever - they are so young, for dwarrowkind, with so much promise.

He regrets that he has waited so long to speak to Ori.

They are Ones; they both know it, have acknowledged it in quiet nods and solemn gazes. It is not the sort of thing they can mistake. But the middle of a desperate quest is no place to have a proper courtship, the sort of courtship one’s One truly deserves, and so they have waited, each hoping that when the Mountain was once again theirs, they could take the time to do this _properly_.

Dwalin was beginning to work on his first gift, in fact, and he suspects Ori was doing the same. Another few days - another week, at most - and Dwalin would have finished the engravings on the warhammer’s handle, the story of their quest picked out in silver wire, a fitting first offering to the One of his heart. Now, he thinks as he follows his king into battle, it will sit forever unfinished, as uncompleted as their bond.

It is perhaps not so grievous a thing as the loss of a kingdom, but he mourns it all the same, and his grief makes his blows stronger. He fights for his king, for his newfound kingdom, for his One who will never be his, and though many orcs strike him, he does not fall - not Dwalin Fundinul, not the finest warrior of the dwarrow now living.

But his king does, and his princes, too.

Dwalin loses himself to the battle-rage for a long, long time.

He wakes in the aftermath, with his brother by his bedside, and for a while he cannot quite believe that it _is_ after. That the battle is over, and even arguably has been won, though at a price Dwalin would not have paid willingly for all the world, much less a single mountain.

After a while, Balin leaves, and Dwalin sits in the comfortable dimness, properly under stone, and traces the runes on his hands. _Baruk Khazad - Khazad ai-menu_. Dwalin’s axes have cleaved many orcish heads, but not enough.

There’s a soft knock on the door, and he grunts in answer. It opens just far enough for a slight figure to slip in - slight for a dwarf, at least. There’s a warhammer in the visitor’s hands.

“So,” Ori says quietly. “I don’t think you finished this.”

Dwalin takes it gently. “No. It’s not done.”

Ori nods. “Mine isn’t done either. But I think we’ve waited long enough.”

Dwalin looks up to meet Ori’s eyes, seeing stubbornness and compassion and a sorrow as deep as his own. “Yes,” he says, and sets the warhammer aside.

It is proper and traditional to court your One with gifts given in front of their family, with chaperoned meals and expeditions, with formal words and public vows. Dwalin would have done that, for Ori. Still will. But there’s an older way, from back when the world was new and the dwarrow-folk were barely come from stone.

“I have no gift worthy of you, who are the half of my soul,” Dwalin says in Khuzdul. “I can give you only myself alone.” He plucks one of his daggers from the table beside the bed and reaches up to sheer off a lock of his hair, holding it out on an open palm.

Ori nods solemnly. “You are the half of my soul,” he replies in the same tongue. “All that I am I give you in return.” He takes Dwalin’s dagger and cuts off a lock of his own hair, placing it in Dwalin’s hand and taking Dwalin’s hair in turn. Slowly and solemnly, Dwalin braids the lock of Ori’s hair into his own, watching Ori doing the same, a shock of blackness against the brown.

There’s a brief pause when they are both finished, and then Ori says, “Well. I suppose we’d better go and scandalize my brothers.”

“One thing first,” Dwalin says, and stands, and cups his One’s face in his hands, and kisses Ori long and slow and sweet, the way he’s wanted to since he first saw the younger dwarrow across a hobbit’s table and knew his One at last. Ori sighs and leans into him and kisses back.

“Alright,” Dwalin says, when they finally pull apart, and they go out together to see what comes after the end of the tale.

**Author's Note:**

> Beta by my darling, wonderful Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw.
> 
> Written for the FFC prompt "After."


End file.
